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We also asked the Governor to comment on a story that appeared a few months ago in the Jamaican Observer.
Here's what Jules Vasquez put to him:
Kareem Michael, Governor, Central Bank
"54th Annual Monetary Studies Conference. I've been holding on to this article for months. Jamaica Observer quoted you as saying, "My bosses want us to do more of the draconian type of measures, and it is important that I am able to explain to them why these things shouldn't apply." Two things: "
Jules Vasquez:
"What are those draconian measures?"
Kareem Michael, Governor, Central Bank
"I may have used a strong word, by Draconian, and I think these sort of dated policy measures can have unintended consequences. And I think it was asked earlier that what if we go tit for tat? What if the commercial banks now see that I will collect this whatever loss I may have from what I'm doing up here and more through some other fees somewhere else. That is not what we want. What we're trying to show is how by lowering these things we are promoting financial inclusion and thereby giving you more participants, more opportunities for your for you to continue to engage in traditional banking services."
"If the real sticking issue is ATM, there's a number of opportunities where everybody can be on a shared network and many different structures that work in other economies where there's opportunity to to sort of reduce the costs of the ATM."
"But it's not up to me to recommend that to the Bankers Association. So the choice of word may be a bit strong. But yes, what we want to avoid is, as this is a last resort because of the danger or the likelihood that fees caused may be passed on to something else. That's well understood."
